Kiev Passenger Railway Station

Kiev Passenger Railway Station (Ukrainian: "Київ-Пасажирський", Kyiv-Pasazhyrs’kyi) is a complex of Kiev 's Central Station and adjoining "Southern Station," plus the adjacent Suburban Station, together serving more than 170,000 passengers per day (as of 2005). "Southern Station" is a misnomer in virtually universal usage in Kiev, referring to an entrance on the other side of the tracks from Central Station. The station complex thus provides long-distance and international services, and short-distance service (elektrichka) for suburbs (including dacha areas), minor city stations, and nearby regions.

The Kiev Metro station Vokzalna is adjoining the complex, constituting the station's main intersection with city transport. The Kiev tram terminal Starovokzal'na (Ukrainian: "Старовокзальна") (the terminal for Kiev's High-Speed Tram line) is also adjacent via a passageway. The old Kiev railroad station was constructed during 1868-1870, as a part of Kiev- Balta and Kiev- Kursk railroad constructions, which were also completed in 1870. The station was located in a valley of Lybid’ river, replacing soldiers' and gendarmes' settlements. The two-floor brick station building of Old English Gothic style was by the architect М. V. Vyshnevetskyi. The current Central Station building was constructed in 1927-1932 and designed by O. Verbytskyi. It was built in the style of Ukrainian Baroque with some elements of Constructivism.

In 2001, the building was restored to roughly its original state. In the same year, the new modern "Southern Station" building was erected at the opposite side of Central Station's sixteen tracks, being in reality not a separate station but merely another large entranceway to the Central Station, with new ticket windows and linked by a hallway above the track accesses. The renovation project also included two large underground parking structures, one of which remains uncompleted to the date.

Officially, Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi Railway Station is regarded as the whole huge complex of passenger terminals, railways, depots etc. with respective personnel. Practically, such installations in post- Soviet countries are widely known as railroad vokzals, which means the building(s) and services immediately serving passengers for various types of transport. The official name Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi is not used colloquially, appearing only in tickets, schedules etc. By the same token, the locally popular terms "Central Station" and "Southern Station" do not appear in such technical literature, as for internal purposes they are treated as the same location.

Currently the station is severely overloaded with suburban traffic, intercity traffic (especially during the height of winter and summer holidays), and also subway traffic (in daily rush hours).